Cultural Impact of Films

I thought it would be fun to discuss different cultural impacts that films have had.. Stuff that is difficult to know without having lived through when a film was released.

I'll start us off with an example.. after Forest Gump, the line "Run forest run" became a cliche epidemic. For years it seemed that you could not run in public without someone yelling this line at you.

For the first superman movie, an old (age) friend of mine told me how everyone was so wowed by the effects and how smooth the takeoff and landings were.

Apparently there was a superman TV show or something before the movie that had terrible special effects. This lead to low expectations and the wow factor.

"Trainspotting" (1996) genereted youths interest in Heroin, especially in Scotland. Thousands became addicts because of the movie.


Entire generation became "kings of the world" after watching "Titanic" (1997).


"Fight Club" (1999) gave self destruction as an answer to mundanity of life for many unsatisfied youths of the generation.


"Black Hawk Down" (2001) inspired many Americans to joint the military after 9/11.


"Brokeback Mountain" (2005) made some homophobic people more tolerant towards gays.

did it really? Because I can't imagine anyone homophobic watching it in the first place.

Lol. If they happen to watch it, I suppose.

Other than Titanic, did any of these actually happen? Was there really a direct causation/correlation?

The real effects of film on culture are cumulative in nature. They talk about it a lot over at Cracked.com (one amusing, yet surprisingly insightful website).

For example, how many people believe silencers on guns make the gun sound like a tiny pop? There's a Youtube video showing the real difference and, sorry to say, James Bond films get the silencer completely wrong.



How many people think a gun will fire if you drop it? Plaxico Burress found out the hard way that if you drop a gun it's better to just let it drop.

How many racial/sexist stereotypes are reinforced by film? If even at a subliminal level, how many people assume all taxi drivers are foreign, for example? Or why do women in films only talk about men (Bechdel test anyone?)?

I think individual film impact on culture is usually a nudge or a trend, but the real impact film has on culture is slow and persistent and long range in nature.

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It is as direct as influence of art is tangible. So no, there isn't and I don't think there can be definitive answer when it comes to art and culture. However these movies were powerful or gained cult status. I read a heroin addict talking about her and her friends being "Trainspotting generation" as she said many of her friends were dead already. "Fight Club", unlike most other violent movies, was set in our world and featured average Joes making it more relatable to wide audience. I'm not underestimating the power of it's cult status and essentially nihilistic tone. "Black Hawk Down" is unique among most war movies as it lacks significant political or personal drama and is focused entirely on the idea of elite armed forces and being part of it in the heat of a battle. "Brokeback Mountain"- well, I thought it was a touching story, so I assume others could have been touched too.


Obviously all that can be debated.
Certainly.
A lot of our "knowledge" about and perception of the world is formed by movies.
One film can hardly be a sole reason for some cultural phenomena, though movies with cult status have more impact .

Brokeback Mountain converted absolutely nobody. If anything the impact was the backlash-in a year where Crash and Brokeback picked up the big awards, conservatives got bothered that Hollywood was making all of their stories political and diverse.

How about Jaws and Star Wars? both are the ultimate makers of summer blockbusters and all that.

The Dark Knight Trilogy and Batman 1989 both brought Batman back to darkness after campiness and were inspired by Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams, Frank Miller, Alan Moore etc. take on the character.

"The Matrix" popularized a new word "matrix". Also blue and red pills as a choice became a meme.

Forest Gump made it cool to be stupid.

Sure it can. Actually that is the whole premise of this thread.

I'll add another one that is relatively well known.
After jaws came out, many sharks were hunted and killed. A lot of them died because of that movie.

I think the cultural impact of Jaws is that it caused thousands of people to be afraid of swimming in the ocean. There are some of us who are still afraid to go into the water 40 years later.